***********************************************************************************************************
*********************************************************************************************************
Ipsita Panigrahi:
"How did your book My Father, Our Fraternity (released in Mumbai last Thursday) take shape?"
***********************************************************************************************************
I was 9+ then. And was a naughty boy always playing outside or teasing younger sisters inside our home.
Generally, my Father used to punish me with a hit on my head.
But that day he had just started squatting (padmasan) on the floor-peetham for his morning Sandhya Vandanam when my youngest sister started squealing...as sissies do.
He then beckoned to me and asked me to fetch a note book and his Swan Pen (always in his shirt pocket).
Which I did.
And he wrote down on a full page in his lovely but miniscule handwriting all the inflections of the word: 'eat' in all the tenses (known to mankind).
First he made a huge matrix with row and columns.
The rows were labeled: Present, Past, Future with subdivisions in each for 'active' and 'passive' voice. The Future had the additional subdivisions: Shall and Will.
The columns had the headings: Indefinite, Continuous, Perfect, and Perfect Continuous.
You can count the number of elements in this matrix...it must be above 30.
And he started filling them up one by one.
After the job was done, he asked me to sit down by his side and mug them all up.
And he dipped his 'sandhyavandan' copper spoon in his tumbler of well-water, took it out, and started sprinkling the 'holified' water on his body reciting the sanctifying mantra:
And went into his 15-minute drill.
While he was inking from his memory all those verb forms of 'eat', I was struck with wonder and thought he must be a geeenius...the first time I realized that he qualified as my English Guru.
And I took the mugging up as a challenge.
By the time he concluded his drill, dropping a spoonful of holy water on the floor, dipping his 'anamika' (ring) finger in the drop, rubbing it on the wetted spot and 'bindifying' his forehead with it, reciting the raksha mantra:
I closed the book and said I was ready for my (first) English Viva. And it was his turn to be amazed into wonderment if I was that good at that age.
And, as he quizzed, one after the other, inflections at random (he was a devil of a quiz-master), I reeled out the answers; and if I were his Ishani, he would have embraced me...but being my strict HM, all he did was to ask me to get lost and go out for play.
I guess the most complicated entry was something like:
"The pappadam would have been being eaten'
or some such ghastly thing...I forgot all the grammar he taught me...
*********************************************************************************************************
When I took to my indiscriminate blogging to kill my retirement hours, I was often recalling that sandhyavandanam scene of my Father.
And I am glad that there must be more than a hundred blogs in which he figures perpetuating his HM-memory.
And I owe it to my son who taught me how to blog, how to take pictures with my cell phone, how to edit them, how to transfer them into the laptop he gifted me via bluetooth, how to downsize each of them so that the cussed blogspot doesn't reject it whining that I was crossing her watertight limits....
************************************************************************************************************
Sri G. Radhakrishnaiah is my Head Master-Father
&
Sri G. V. Subbaramayya is my Principal-Uncle
*********************************************************************************************************
Ipsita Panigrahi:
"How did your book My Father, Our Fraternity (released in Mumbai last Thursday) take shape?"
Ustad Amzad Ali Khan:
"We were moving house and I found some old notes I had written about Abbajee (musician-father Haafiz Ali Khan Saheb). But I didn't care so much for them and asked Subhalaxmi to throw them away. But, Ayaan, our younger son, preserved the notes and printed them. His efforts inspired me and I started writing, putting down whatever came to my mind. With the help of these notes I was able to bring out this book..."
....DC, OP-ED, Sunday, 16 December 2012
***********************************************************************************************************
One Sunday, May 1953: Muthukur
I was 9+ then. And was a naughty boy always playing outside or teasing younger sisters inside our home.
Generally, my Father used to punish me with a hit on my head.
But that day he had just started squatting (padmasan) on the floor-peetham for his morning Sandhya Vandanam when my youngest sister started squealing...as sissies do.
He then beckoned to me and asked me to fetch a note book and his Swan Pen (always in his shirt pocket).
Which I did.
And he wrote down on a full page in his lovely but miniscule handwriting all the inflections of the word: 'eat' in all the tenses (known to mankind).
First he made a huge matrix with row and columns.
The rows were labeled: Present, Past, Future with subdivisions in each for 'active' and 'passive' voice. The Future had the additional subdivisions: Shall and Will.
The columns had the headings: Indefinite, Continuous, Perfect, and Perfect Continuous.
You can count the number of elements in this matrix...it must be above 30.
And he started filling them up one by one.
After the job was done, he asked me to sit down by his side and mug them all up.
And he dipped his 'sandhyavandan' copper spoon in his tumbler of well-water, took it out, and started sprinkling the 'holified' water on his body reciting the sanctifying mantra:
Apavitrah pavitrova
Sarvavasthan gatopiva
Yahsmaret pundarikaksham
Sabahyabhyantarah suchih
And went into his 15-minute drill.
While he was inking from his memory all those verb forms of 'eat', I was struck with wonder and thought he must be a geeenius...the first time I realized that he qualified as my English Guru.
And I took the mugging up as a challenge.
By the time he concluded his drill, dropping a spoonful of holy water on the floor, dipping his 'anamika' (ring) finger in the drop, rubbing it on the wetted spot and 'bindifying' his forehead with it, reciting the raksha mantra:
Adyano deva savitah
Prajavatsabhi shobhagm
Para duhswapna yagmsuva
Vishwani deva savitah
Duritani parasva
Yad bhadram tan na aasuva
I closed the book and said I was ready for my (first) English Viva. And it was his turn to be amazed into wonderment if I was that good at that age.
And, as he quizzed, one after the other, inflections at random (he was a devil of a quiz-master), I reeled out the answers; and if I were his Ishani, he would have embraced me...but being my strict HM, all he did was to ask me to get lost and go out for play.
I guess the most complicated entry was something like:
"The pappadam would have been being eaten'
or some such ghastly thing...I forgot all the grammar he taught me...
*********************************************************************************************************
When I took to my indiscriminate blogging to kill my retirement hours, I was often recalling that sandhyavandanam scene of my Father.
And I am glad that there must be more than a hundred blogs in which he figures perpetuating his HM-memory.
And I owe it to my son who taught me how to blog, how to take pictures with my cell phone, how to edit them, how to transfer them into the laptop he gifted me via bluetooth, how to downsize each of them so that the cussed blogspot doesn't reject it whining that I was crossing her watertight limits....
************************************************************************************************************
No comments:
Post a Comment